Gum Democracy

Gum Election is a guerrilla art project which kicked off in New York City in October 2008. Claiming to install “modern democracy” in public space, the project was aimed to encourage people to vote in 2008’s presidential election, and also not to spit out their chewing gums carelessly on the Big Apple’s already dirty pavements.

Posters were taped to walls and lamp posts at more than 50 hot spots throughout the city, enabling passers-by to put their gum on their least favorite candidate’s face. Gum Election became so popular that posters also popped up in other cities in the United States and even abroad.

After two and a half years Gum Election is back on the streets of New York, pitting AT&T against the newly iPhone-capable Verizon Wireless. “Let us know who sucks the most: AT&T or Verizon.” The project’s initiators encourage people to bring the “the new battle for mobile service sovereignty” to their own city: “Print out the poster, put it up and send us pictures of it”. Click here to download your version!

Atema Architecture’s ‘Auto-Cannibalistic Table’ is made out of egg cartons, flour paste, soil and seeds. When water is added, the seeds germinate and the table literally eats itself. I’m not sure whether this is a useful piece of recycled furniture or a plant in itself. At this blog we’re interested in places and spaces adaptable…

Today I stumbled upon some of Toyota’s so-called ‘greenification’ mission. Initiating several projects such as the Roof Garden Corporation, the Japanese car brand aims to contribute to the improvement of the urban environment. The Roof Garden Corporation was established in December 2001 and focuses on achieving sustainable urban greenification by making buildings greener and developing…

Many of you might have heard of pop-up park iniatives such as Park(ing) Day, which involves the transformation of urban parking spots into little pop-up parks. Joe Baldwin, founder of arts advocate organization Noisivelvet, must have thought that this can be done better. In conjunction with the Altgeld Sawyer Corner Farm, he turned nearly an entire Logan Square street…

In the usually very peaceful and provincial town of Purmerend, a suburb of Amsterdam, a very oddly shaped bridge has popped up. Designed by Amsterdam-based NEXT Architects, the extraordinary structure connects the new neighborhood Weidevenne with the old town center.